I’m feeling a little unrooted these days. I’ve been exploring these feelings, the ones that tells me I want to go back to work. But I’m plagued with doubts. Is there room in this world for the kind of doctor I want to be?
I definitely know what I don’t want. I don’t want to try to jam 40-something patients into a nine hour day. And I don’t want to run myself so ragged that I lose myself in the process. But what exactly would that look like? What kind of doctor do I want to be?
I was talking it over with my new friend Jo Perron, who, on top of being a great OB/GYN, is a yoga instructor and has completed fellowship training in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona with Dr. Andrew Weil, one of the gurus of complementary and alternative medicine. As we were brainstorming ideas, I told her I wanted to start a practice like the one I dreamed of when I was a teenager, the one with the puffy pink bathrobes and chick flicks in the waiting room and cool girly art on the walls (like this Owning Pink Painting I did called “No Boys Allowed.”) Jo got all excited, her voice growing higher in pitch and her speech racing.
She told me she once convinced her partners to turn their gynecology office into a sort of day-spa. You could get a mani-pedi, a haircut, and a pap smear in one fell swoop. The locals in town jokingly called it the Pussy Palace, and artist Steve Hinton painted a notorious masterpiece, spoofing the place. In the painting, a surly, old-school male gynecologist with a head lamp squats between a woman’s straddled legs, while Nurse Ratchett looks on. As the doctor does the woman’s pap smear, a nail technician paints her toenails, an aesthetician applies a facial, and her fingernails soak in a bowl. The artist called it A Day At The Daisy Dew.
Because it caused such a stir, the other doctors at the Pussy Palace purchased it, just to get it out of circulation. When Jo left the practice, they gave her the painting as a gift. It hangs in her living room at home.
But she dreams of buying a pink RV and using it as a roaming pap smear clinic. She’ll call it Snappy Pappy At Your Cervix. Or maybe Pap & Lube. She would deck it out with girly, frilly things and hang A Day At The Daisy Dew on the wall. I beg her to do it with me. Can’t you just see the two of us in that pink RV, driving around Pebble Beach past all the stuffy, uptight golfers, with Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar” blaring from loudspeakers, like some feminist ice cream truck?
And we could open a clinic in Monterey- a holistic women’s health center that united two OB/GYN’s with a naturopath, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, a Reiki therapist. You know- the whole works, all tied up with a pretty pink bow. And we would invite our patients to join us for women’s health retreats in Big Sur or Carmel Valley. You know- get women to sit in a sacred circle and talk about sex and yonis and draw upon our feminine energy. We could heal our wounded vaginas and our slashed-open uteruses and all the other girly scars we bear. I could teach art, and Jo could teach yoga, and my girlfriend Cari, who is the wise sage type (unlike me- I’m more the girlfriend’s guide type), can keep us all grounded and meditative and inspired and united. (If I tried to do it alone, we’d all end up having slumber parties in our pajamas and watching Molly Ringwald movies).
I’m so worked up by this point that I want to cliff dive into oceans and jump out of airplanes and go hang-gliding and do the Iron Man race. I’m feeling so bloated with OB/GYN energy that I email every girl I know to ask if she’d think I was a crazy loon who as gone off the deep end, or if she might actually fork over some money to be my patient.
They all swear they’ll fork. They tell me to bring it on. You go, girl! If you build it, they will come.
But Jo says no. She has survived breast cancer, but it left its mark on her. She lacks the energy, and chemotherapy has made it hard for her to use her hands.
And I am once again filled with doubt. What if they don’t come? What if I’m standing there beside my pink RV, with all my fluffy pink bathrobes and a boatload of debt, and artists are making fun of me with Pussy Palace paintings? What if, instead of inspiring others to follow their dreams, I become a cautionary tale? (Oh, remember that crazy Lissa Rankin woman, the one who had this great life and then went off the deep end and lost everything?”)
In the mean time, I’m supposed to start a new job in Monterey with two other lovely OB/GYN’s, but roadblocks keep appearing. Then the recruiter from Kaiser calls me with a job offering in Sonoma County, and a very nice OB/GYN in Santa Cruz says they are looking for a full time partner. All I’d have to do is fill out some papers and jump through the usual hoops, and I’ll be right back in the rat race, seeing bunches of patients and carrying a pager and taking night call again. With that thought, a deep ache in my gut replaces the lovely calling twinge I’ve been feeling. I can’t do that again. I’ve changed too much. I can’t go backwards. It would feel like failure.
Today, I’ve just driven down to Big Sur, looking for answers. I will go to my rock at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and I will visit the energy vortex at Esalen, and maybe Big Sur will tell me what to do. I’ve been avoiding coming here. The whole place nearly burned up about two months ago. Over the past couple months, I have heard rumors of the devastation. How would I cope with seeing it again, for the first time? I opted for the ever popular tactic of avoidance. If I haven’t witnessed it, maybe it didn’t happen. But today, I mustered all my courage and planned a drive down to Esalen. I was having a hard time distinguishing the path my life should take, and the answers eluded me. So I figured I needed to do what I always do when it’s time to make big decision. It was time to face Big Sur.
The drive to Andrew Molera State Park was lovely- gorgeous as usual with absolutely no sign of fire. I felt encouraged. River Inn looked just the same, with its quirky mix of hippie types and bearded motorcycle gangs. The road to Charlie’s cabin looked unaffected, the wooden mailboxes creaky and rusty as ever, surrounded by oaks. The giant redwoods at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park stood sentry. I started to breathe.
Then I rounded the bend to Big Sur Station and slammed on my brakes. Oh. My. God.
The usually bright green, spectacular vista to the east jumped out at me like a mountain lion. Miles and miles of blackened, barren hills rolled to infinity. I had to pull off on the side of the road to compose myself. Flinging open the car door, I stepped out onto Highway 1 and crossed the road. As far as I could see, there wasn’t a green tree in sight. Nothing but ash and charred bits of bramble and brown stumps. The heavy odor of burnt earth, like old cigarette smoke in a ashtray, permeated the air, replacing the usually heady aroma of eucalyptus and pine. I stood there, staring, envisioning long tree roots grounding me into the earth, as if my own life energy might bring Big Sur back. At least I knew my rock could never burn. I just needed to pick up my feet, keep driving and breathing, and find solace in my special spot.
I kept driving, passing Big Sur Bakery and Nepenthe, and knowing that my lovely friend Toby would give me a hug, I stopped at Hawthorne Gallery to catch my breath. Toby was as generous with his friendship and support as I expected, which recharged me to keep going. Driving south, if I didn’t look to the left, not much had changed. Highway 1 acted as a natural fire break, and the firefighters worked tirelessly to protect historic structures, homes, and resorts. But then I’d round another corner and discover that the fire had burned acres and acres, all the way up to the road. It was a seared wasteland, and I fought to keep breathing. Deep yoga belly breath in, deep cleansing belly breath out.
Finally, I arrived at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The sign for the park was still there, along with the bathrooms and the parking lot, but the whole entire hillside, where Matt and I once hiked the “killer loop trail” was completely destroyed. At least I knew no fire could burn my rock, over on the safe west side of Highway 1, right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. But when I got to the trailhead leading to my rock, a big white sign read “Trail Closed Due To Fire Damage.” I could see workmen beyond the sign, cutting down trees, with bulldozers thrashing around. I was about to lose it, when I talked myself out of a meltdown. It was okay. I still had Esalen, which others had told me was unscathed. I could go back to the energy vortex and ask Big Sur my questions. My rock would still be there, one day, when they reopened the trails. So I climbed back into my car and drove the rest of the way, trying not to focus on the apocalyptic landscape.
When I arrived, Esalen appeared as it always does, idyllic, dreamy, and cheery. Thank God.I headed straight to the vortex, between the two cliffs, where the river cascades into the ocean, just past the meditation center. Walking down the hill, I felt my heartbeat begin to slow and my breath deepened. I was almost there. I had first been the vortex when my friend Suzanne mentioned it, back in March. I had thought, “Yeah, sure…the energy vortex.” But it had grown on me. The last time I had been there was about two months ago, shortly after taking a walk in San Diego with my friend Kate, who like me, had quit her busy job as an attorney after giving birth to two children, and like me, was struggling to figure out what comes next. On our walk, I told Kate what I had just learned from Joy, my friend from Esalen, about rock divination. Apparently, to divine a rock, you pose an open-ended question to the universe, like “What is God’s purpose for me?” or “How can I best utilize my skills in life?” And then you choose a rock and write it about it. How it looks, how it feels, what defines it. Then you study what you wrote and seek the answers to your question in the essence of the rock. When Joy told me about it, I said, “Like a magic eight ball?” and instead of making fun of me, Joy nodded graciously.
I relayed this technique to Kate because she too was posing confused questions to the universe. As I was telling her about rock divination, I spotted a rock in the surf. I reached down to pick it up. It was gorgeous- small, polished, mostly black, but with smooth circles of white and a dark nubbin of a tip. I asked Kate what she thought it meant, this rock I had just picked up. I knew I wasn’t doing it right, because I hadn’t yet posed my magic eight ball question.
But Kate said, without a blink, “It is beautiful, just like you. It has polished edges and has been worn down by years of surf. You can see the layers, like an onion, multi-dimensional, like you- a Renaissance rock.”
Her words inspired me to do it for real. So I had gone back to Esalen to look for rocks and guidance. The question I posed to the universe was “How can I serve my community and integrate my skills as a doctor, writer, and artist, instead of feeling like a split personality who has to cleave myself into one or the other?” The answer eluded me in my own mind, so perhaps a rock could help.
I searched the grounds for the perfect rock, but I didn’t find one until I left Esalen property and ventured into the Ventana Wilderness, just beyond the gate. I hiked the loamy path leading to the energy vortex, where the rushing stream traverses redwoods, and I stood on the bridge, in the center of the vortex. As I had two weeks earlier, I held my hands inside my sweatshirt, holding on to the railing, and there it was, the pulsing dance of my own heartbeat. From that place of peace, I spotted my rock, nestled into the silt as water rushed around it. 
In the whole river, only my rock sported a visible coating of kelly green moss on a portion of its surface. The rest of the rock was grey, with streaks of white that divided it into three zones. Like a vague triangle with rounded corners, my rock snuggled up to another rock on a corner of its lower edge but the other two sides were free of entanglement, sharing space only with water. As water approached my rock, it flowed in a steady forward-moving sheet, but as it encountered my rock, my rock became a fork in the road, with the water splitting, 2/3 flowing to the right of my rock and 1/3 flowing to the left, reflecting the natural golden point of symmetry. The larger volume of water, which flowed to the right, traveled in a smooth, clean stream, but the smaller volume to the left dipped and curved in a circuitous path down the river. Small stones wedged underneath it, holding it up and keeping it from toppling over. With a smooth, dry surface, my rock differed from the other rocks, which had more characterful sharp edges and more wet surfaces.
I’m still not sure what it all means, but I suspect it’s not an accident that I picked the only rock that had been in that stream long enough to be covered with moss. You can maybe read something into the fact that I chose the only colorful rock in the stream, and that my rock divided the flow of water. I suppose I want to build roots, and I’m used to feeling very otherly. Like the green mossy rock, I’m definitely a bit of a prima donna, and there are certainly lots of people in my life who lift me up, the wind beneath my wings, and allow me to accomplish the things I do in life, the supporting stones under the mossy rock that keep me from tipping over. I’m not sure how that answers the question I posed to the universe. I’m still considering it. But today, back at Esalen, I figured I would get one more shot at it, one more glimpse of my rock in the vortex, speaking to me about life’s answers. I would stand on the bridge with my hands wrapped around the beat-beating safety bar, and I would listen.
But once again, I was thwarted. When I arrived at the gate that separated Esalen property from the wilderness, strips of yellow tape closed the gate, like a taped-off crime scene. A huge sign blockaded the gate, saying “EXTREME DANGER. DO NOT ENTER!”
My heart started racing again, and I felt myself hyperventilating. What now? I had come all this way? How was I going to find my much-needed answers? Big Sur had failed me for the first time ever. God had failed me. I was about to throw a full-fledged hissy fit, when I thought of something my friend Jo had said that morning, when we were walking along the ocean in Pebble Beach. She said, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” This coming from someone who has survived breast cancer and still experiences pain in her hands.
I felt like a schmuck. Here I was in the most beautiful place in the world, on a clear, sunny day, with nothing to do but bathe, write, walk, and eat. Really- what was I complaining about? Just behind me was Esalen’s meditation center. I have been to Esalen many times in the past several months, but I had only once entered the meditation center. A sign on its door says, “No reading, no writing, no napping, no yoga. Only meditation.” That pretty much scared me off, until one day when the schedule said they would have a guided meditation, which sounded like something I might be able to get my brain around. If only someone would tell me how to meditate, how to turn off the constant chatter in my brain, then maybe I could make it through a whole thirty minutes. But I had gotten the time wrong, and when I arrived, the meditation center was empty. A circle of pillows lined the edges of the room, which looked out over the ocean. Staring at the empty nothingness, I turned on my heels and ran away, like a deer fleeing into the forest.
Now, I was standing there outside that meditation center, despairing. For lack of anything better to do, I took off my shoes and padded inside. Squaring myself into the lotus position on a circular pillow, facing out towards the ocean, I closed my eyes. The sound of the waves rushing in and out added background rhythm to my racing thoughts. Birds chirped and, far off, a dog barked. And suddenly, I had an epiphany.
Maybe God is trying to tell me something. Maybe it wasn’t an accident that big, yellow roadblocks had been erected along all of my paths in life lately. Maybe He’s trying really, friggin’ hard to tell me something else. Maybe I’m supposed to just be still, to stop walking so fast, to be present in the moment. To simply wait. I breathe in and out with the sound of the tides, pacing my breath to the ocean’s rhythm. A montage of blackened images flashes through my brain. Big Sur is burned up, my healing rocks are inaccessible, and the energy vortex now causes Extreme Danger. There is no where I can go to find my truth.
But maybe I am looking at it all wrong. Maybe I need to start looking inside myself, instead of looking to Big Sur for signs and answers. Maybe I have been using Big Sur as a crutch, unaware that Big Sur has merely acted as a conduit, bringing me closer to my true self, so I can more clearly hear the voice of my own wisdom. Maybe I’m trying too hard. Finding your true path isn’t like medical school, a series of hoops you can jump through to ensure you end up where you meant to be. It’s much more circuitous and uncertain. Maybe I need to truly surrender. This morning, Jo told me about a card one of her yoga students gave her. On the front was a photograph of a rollercoaster, filled with Buddhist monks. Not one of them was holding on for dear life to the safety bar. Every one had their arms flung up in the air as they coasted down a great hill. Maybe I’m like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I might look to Big Sur, the great and powerful wizard, but when it comes right down to it, the good witch Glenda reminds me that the answer has been right there in my heart, all along.
A little voice in my head says, “You will know the answer when the time comes,” and suddenly, I believe it.
I’m not so grandiose as to think that the Big Sur fires happened to teach me a lesson, or even to see these obstacles as a sign. Natural disasters happen, and as my friend Joy says, they can be cleansing. Old underbrush gets cleaned up. People who have been rooted in dysfunction, like me, get shaken into living in the present moment. Maybe it’s like wafting sage around a room.
So what’s next for me? I honestly don’t know. I will continue to ask the questions, to seek wisdom from those around me who support my journey, and most importantly, to trust my own intuition. Maybe I will once again be on a stool between the stirrups. Maybe I need to grow more, as a person and a doctor, before I’m ready to make that next step. Maybe it’s time to start a new path, one that doesn’t have big scary signs blocking its way. Maybe I’ll apply for that integrative medicine fellowship, to seek tools that will help me be the kind of doctor I want to be. I will know what to do when the time comes.
Either way, I know one thing for certain. I have to let go of the handle, flinging my arms out to the side while I ride the umbrella, letting the wind carry me. While clinging to it for dear life may give me the illusion of control, it only serves to weigh me down. And I’m ready to let that go, to spin and dance, with my eyes wide open and my heart outstretched, until I find myself floating down for a gentle landing on the doorstep of whatever’s next.
To my surprise, thirty minutes flew by in the meditation center, and when I looked at my watch, I realized it was time for lunch, something you definitely don’t want to miss at Esalen. In the middle of the lodge, I relayed my experience to my friend Sami, and when she walked away for a moment, a guy who had overheard our chat said, “You want to go to the vortex?” I thought about it. Did I want to go? Would I be seeking out my crutch again? Was there really extreme danger? But I found myself nodding. Yes, I still wanted to go, and he guided me down a different route.
So now I am here, standing once again on the bridge between the towering redwoods which spiral up against the force of the vortex. 
I see my kelly green rock, slightly different, less wet at this late point in the summer, but it’s still there. Slowly, I reach forward to hold my hands on the metal railing of the bridge, the railing where I felt my own heart beat in my hands months ago. Placing both hands on the railing, I wait. But nothing happens. Only cold metal and the sounds of a babbling creek. But I relish the stillness nonetheless and am glad I am here, just being, just appreciating the beauty of this sacred place. Time passes, and I barely notice the gradually pulsing force in my hands as they press against the railing. I hold on tighter, trying to discern that faint beating rhythm, but the pulse disappears.
And now I am giggling, joyful and tickled, because I have just realized something that can only be God making fun of me. When I clasp the railing tightly, as I had been doing, I feel nothing. But as I relax my grasp on the railing, only then do I feel the beat of my heart. So I am barely touching the metal bar, and there it is- boom boom boom. I think of those Buddhist monks on the rollercoaster and I release both hands from the railing, throwing my arms up in the air and laughing at the twists and curves life throws.
